


rocks and ballast (into the abyss)

by NotSummer



Series: The Duoverse [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Dark Character, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship, Nerdiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSummer/pseuds/NotSummer
Summary: It's an odd friendship, to say the least: The alien slave who's secretly an heir to an ancient Sith legacy, and the rising star in the Sith Order who's secretly an alien.Both will have to learn to compromise, if their alliance is to succeed.





	rocks and ballast (into the abyss)

Someone’s going to say the wrong thing here on Dromund Kaas, and it’s going to get them killed. Murdered. Their corpses will be left to rot. Nassath stepped on Vanji’s foot again, thankful he wore long skirts. He’ll leave it up for debate if it’ll be a Revanite camp of corpses or just his and Vanji’s own. That being said, Vanji is worth about three battalions on her own, so if pressed, he’s put about 7 credits on her winning (That’s all he has on him).

“Why would a Jedi join the Sith?” Nassath winced slightly as the guard, Dzoun frowned at his wavering tone. Fuck him. Nassath was perfectly aware of how quickly the massive Echani behind him could disembowel a man with her bare hands, thanks. One of these days, he was afraid her tolerance for his struggle to conform to the Sith would end.

She was in a particularly foul mood. Had been, actually, since the pair had arrived on Kaas. Usually, she was a picture perfect contradiction of refined elegance and brutal bloodlust with her hair always so neatly pleated in its bun and the red tattoos on her face. He had asked her once, why the red tattoos: she had answered with, “I had them carved on my skin with the blood of my enemies.”

He can’t tell if it’s melodrama, an attempt a joke, or the truth. Knowing Vanji, it might have been the third option. He… tries not to ask her things anymore. Vanji steers the rest of the conversation, speaking civilly, if tersely and Nassath doesn’t bother trying to curb her snappish tone. She’s nearly half a meter taller than him, and her biceps are as big as his head.

He’ll pick his battles.

* * *

Vanji is stalking towards a rather unfortunate group of possessed explorers when Nassath yells, “Vanj! There’s a rock over here.”

She stares at the mindless mob, weighing her options, and then, in what a lesser person might have termed a scramble, she hurries over to where Nassath was examining an outcropping. “That’s an Kaasian Trihelite crystal,” she snaps. “A  _ rock _ ,” she hisses derisively. Honestly, she's insulted he would refer to it as such.

He looked up at her, which his smaller stature made rather effortless. “Mineral, actually. Why would you think it’s a rock?” A cheeky grin follows his statement.

She freezes, and chastises herself for falling into the trap of wordplay with Nassath, a skill with which he far outstrips her. Vanji spends much of her free time ensuring her lightsabers have only the best combination of crystals to enhance the refraction, color, and strength of her blades. Of course, that means she has acquired a respectable amount of knowledge about such things.

Nassath looks worried, likely that he had offended her, and she deliberately loosens her shoulders. He frowns slightly, his pale grey eyes inscrutable, but turns his attention back to carefully using the Force to lever out one of the larger green shards. The wrong color for her, obviously, but perhaps Nassath can make it work.

Much of the time she spends with him had leads her to an indelible conviction: Nassath might become a Sith, but his heart wasn’t in it. He holds not the glory of the Empire within his ambitions, and treachery is not part of his nature.

Sometimes she wonders why she stays with an ally who was not pure of intention and seeks no glory in battle. He grins up at her as he stands up, and turns his back to her as he circles the outcropping.

The show of trust, even unconscious- something warms within her. She's over two meters tall, built like the mountain ranges of Alderaan, and blood red tattoos cover her face. Vanji is not someone people turn their back on.

So she lets him slip past fools she would rather execute, and lets him speak for her.

She’ll pick her battles. And she would rather not pick them with an ally.

**Author's Note:**

> They're such different people, honestly.


End file.
